Subject: Re: A Tokyo Senshi In Queen Rei's Court [SM/Arthurian :)]
From: Richard David Beaubien
Date: 11/29/1996, 11:31 AM
To: Fanfic List
CC: "Ranma Al'Thor" <ranma@falcon.CC.UKANS.edu>



All right, this took awhile in coming but due to my apathy and school work
I have been slow on replaying to this. But considiring Biles-san sent me
this monster of a work personally I should offer some comments (short as
they may be) on this work.

As with any Biles work, your dealing with a solidly put togther story in
structure and in plot. His stories are always fun to read in, and provide
a great example of how to set up the structure of fanfic in either script
or prose form. He also does a wonderfull example as always of mixing in
cameos into the main body of his works. I almost missed the Orange Road
cameos in this story, as Biles worked them into the story plot and didn't
just have them there for the sake of a cameo (although it was fun when I
found out who the characters Kurami and Manami where a paragraph later,
thinking hey it's Orange road..:). It also makes me want to reread this
monster to catch any more cameos...

Biles also does a nice mixing of the Arthur-Sailor Moon legends, which
is in itself a monumental task. He manges to mix both togther with out
losing the flavor of both serious, something any author risks when the
attempt crossovers. It's also a pleasent suprise that mixing seems to
take on a mythical level it self, some surpassing both Camelot and the
Silver Millenium and becoming it's own unique legend. 

Of course add extra bonus points for Ami being a main character and for
Biles using a dub (gasp) name without making me go into how much I
hate..hate...HATE...SM USA!!!!

There are a couple of problems, one being that in certain instences Biles
expects a certain familiarity with some aspects of the Camelot/Aurthur
legends. Of course while many are familar with them, I myself have only a
small knowledge of the epic legend. Some expanding of the myths in
certaina areas would of been nice. And perhaps the switiching of the roles
of Usagi and Rei bothered me a bit. While it worked great for the Mamoru
and Usagi scenes, I think that Usagi is destined to be the princess in any
SM universe (lord knows the TV series reminds us of this all of the
time..). Thus I found it awkward in some scenes to have Rei be the queen
(unless I misread a couple of things and you only Usagi could us the
silver crystal, she is the only one that can use it in the Manga/anime..)

Anyway, a nice fic if you can sit down and read it (it is approaching
Lemoanade size, a fic I read once and enjoyed and probably will never read
again), and a great way to get lear about Camelot if your like me, Camelot
naive and a really big Senshi fan...

Darn it Biles...making us learn history..:)

Ja ne!!

Richard Beaubien
----------------
Mizuno Ami-chan forever!!!

Fanfic homepage http://iczer1.usacomputers.net/~beaubird